ChampionX Corporation (NASDAQ:CHX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Sivasankaran Somasundaram: Yes, it’s a primarily a function of seasonality, so and that’s primarily in our Chemical Technologies business. So say it the other way that you will see the seasonal, seasonality and seasonal Q4 to Q1, our PAT business starting to grow, as our North American land business starting to get back and you will see our Drilling Technologies, as we already talked about. Right? So it’s primarily a Chemical Technologies business and primarily an International phenomena. And that’s why we provided the historical perspective in the chart going back several years. So this is something we normally see. So in terms of high — guidance range, so what can make it better? Obviously the activity level in Q1 is better than we anticipate, and it can be better.

Right? And that’s what I would say. So I think it’s just a seasonal aspect, so — and we are seeing the trend in January in our PAT and Drilling Technologies and all that rebounding from the seasonal slowdown in Q4. So as we get into Q2, you will see our Production Chemical business continues to pick up its growth.

Atidrip Modak: Okay. Thanks for the color there. And then you mentioned one area of focus for the Investor Day, but can you help understand what your primary areas of focus will be across the business? What should we be looking for in March?

Sivasankaran Somasundaram: Yes, so Ati, I’m glad you asked. We are excited about the upcoming, the March Investor Day, right? And you know, this is our first Investor Day since we had the transformational merger in 2020. So this is our first Investor Day as ChampionX. So, what we want to accomplish in this Investor Day is first and foremost, we want to make sure that we provide a deeper understanding of our portfolio, particularly our Chemical Technologies business, because I think the Chemical Technologies business is new in our portfolio since 2020, and it’s our largest business today. So we really want to provide a deeper understanding of our Chemical Technologies business, including why is the Production Chemicals, why is it attractive?

What are the key drivers of growth? What are the key drivers of cost? And make sure that we provide a good understanding of our portfolio, particularly our Chemical Technologies business. Second is we want to show our positioning of the business portfolio of ChampionX. And why is it attractive in the emerging world of oil and gas? So we really want to show the attractiveness of the portfolio for the future in oil and gas. Third is, we want to detail out our high impact organic growth opportunities, because we have talked about some of this before, the intensity of Production Chemistry is increasing, the requirement of artificial lift. One of the emerging discussions is about well productivity, and particularly in places like Permian. We want to talk about how does our portfolio, particularly Production Chemicals and artificial lift, how does that help customers deal with these well productivity issues?

Because those are all, I would say attractive factors for our Production Chemistry and artificial lift businesses. So we really want to detail out those high impact growth. The other aspect I would mention is, in Production Chemicals, we sometimes talk a lot about the production volume growth and particularly oil volume growth. But we will also demonstrate it is not just dependent on oil volume growth; it’s also dependent on total fluids produced, because as these wells start producing more water, there is more chemistry required as well to treat those water. Right? So we really want to detail out the high impact organic growth opportunities, and then we want to highlight and show a view of the new development of technologies, new emerging technologies, particularly in emissions and digital as well as the new technologies we are focused on in our artificial lift and Production Chemicals, which helps customers produce efficiently and reduce their carbon footprint.

Right? So that’s kind of what I would say that in a — what the crux of our Investor Day would be.